Reuben Fine (1914–1993)

The selling point of this book was always that, while it didn't get into great analytical detail, it explained the basic ideas behind the openings clearly, and well. For years it was a standard recommendation, but the question is whether, over fifty years since it first appeared, it is still useful. There are certainly some obvious ways in which the book shows its age: many of the specific variations covered are hardly seen at all these days, for example, and there are entire opening systems show more quite popular now not even touched on here (the Benoni is an example). Very often, Fine talks about openings in terms of typical pawn structures rather than variations; this is simplistic, I suppose, particularly when, as today, greater emphasis is placed on dynamic elements; but it doesn't seem like a bad starting point at all. In any case, it's impossible for me to dismiss it out of hand, because I do feel that it helped me personally a great deal in understanding the basics of openings like the Classical French and Queen's Gambit.

There are more recent books in a similar vein to Fine's (Gabor Kallai's twin volumes "Basic Chess Openings" and "More Basic Chess Openings" seem like pretty good examples to me; Sam Collins' "Understanding the Chess Openings" is another which I've not seen), and if you're buying new, I suppose these should be favoured over Fine's creaky volume. But I do think that, within its limits, this one still has something to offer. show less

A bit of a classic. I don't know if it was the first book which tried to comprehensively deal with all basic endings in a single volume, but it was certainly the benchmark work in this area for years. Time has shown, however, that there are rather a lot of errors in it, and while Benko's modern edition apparently corrects quite a lot of them, it too is said to be flawed (though I haven't seen it myself). The book retains historical value, but for a practical guide Mueller and Lamprecht's show more "Fundamental Chess Endings" is certainly better nowadays, and I prefer "Batsford Chess Endings" as an encyclopaedic reference, though I know not everybody agrees with me (and it's true that Fine covers more ground in more detail). show less

I read this book, cover to cover. In chess, as the song goes, 'there isn't much difference between despair and ecstacy'. With BCE, you get the understanding that you can do the best with what you've got. Studying endgames is like brainstorming with a group of friends. It accomplishes far more than getting the whole mob together. Best time I've ever spent studying chess was reading BCE.

This was the first chess book I bought back about 30 years ago. I had learned the game from my father when I was a child but he was not a good chess player and only taught me the moves of the pieces. In fact I'm sure he knew nothing about castling or the en passant move by pawns.

This book taught me about the three parts of the game - opening, middle game and end game - as well as strategy.

I don't know if this book is still in print (I still have my copy) but if you are a beginner player or show more have never really learned the rudiments of the game, this is a fine place to start (no pun intended). show less